The Anticipation of Loss

Whenever I come to visit there are many little moments that feel meaningful, but I never can seem to wrap my heart around them. They fall like sand between my outstretched fingers.

My grandmother asked me if I wanted coffee, but what she meant was--did I want coffee to take home? Apparently, there were several pounds left over that my father had sent from Puerto Rico and nobody would drink it. She took 8 lbs to the senior center and gave it away. I want to think of the coffee as the peace offering that my father would never offer. I want the moment that I drink this coffee to know that our souls, if not our hearts, are absolved. I want to think that I could live with only taking what he offered, even if it was not offered to me.
*****
We ate outside in the garden, even though there were only 13 of us. There are many things that my family does wrong but taking care of our elders is not among them. We are eating here instead of at one of the lake houses because this is where she is and she, even with her bitterness, is where our heart is.

My grandmother has aged severely in the last year, shrunk just a little more into herself and lost what ever was left of social inhibition. My sister has brought a boyfriend on this trip-- the boyfriend who will probably be her last. It's an important moment. The boyfriend gives my sister the last bite of my grandmothers famous rice and my grandmother looks at him and says "Don't let her get fat". We laughed. We laughed because it wasn't funny, we laughed because it's in our blood-- a natural response to an uncomfortable situation, we laughed because there was nothing left to do, this was not a battle anyone would choose to fight with Grandma. The boyfriend blinked repeatedly, and said ever so softly, "I used to be fat." No one heard him over the laughing.

*****

There is a sadness that hangs here and I have been trying to figure out exactly what it is hung on. I can't tell if only I can see it or if everyone see's it and laughs anyways. I like to look at all of the photos, not because I remember the moments or want to remember the people, I look because I have always looked, it's the searching that's familiar.

There are no photos in my house. My history lives here in neutral colors and white trim. This is the only place that smells like home though I have never lived here, this house and my memory reek of dial hand soap and sofrito.

I feel the loss coming like October rushing toward July, the change is riding the mid afternoon breeze.

She doesn't want to have surgery on her shoulders and tells me that her heart hurts and soon God will say, "Aida you have been a bad girl." This loss has been on it's way to arriving for the last 89 years. She is ready, I am not.